8/06/2024

feeling dry & brittle

Paul Cézanne - Landscape 1862-1864


sunshine on sunshine 

it builds up like snow 

the light grows deeper and brighter 

as the day goes on 

to live in the big valley is to know light 

moving across this flat land 

i try to keep my westward travels in the morning 

and save the east for the evening 

always keeping the sun at my back 

feet upon the valley 

eyes upon the sky

__________

the world is immense and yet it is but a speck

in the vast emptiness of the expanding universe

and i am a smaller speck wandering on that speck

how marvelous to be so tiny and so free 

it’s wonderful just to be alive breathing

__________

our bodies are mostly water 

they teach us that in school 

when we are still quite young 

and with water we thrive 

and so this long dry sacramento valley 

craves water to drink 

and indeed is itself part of a huge watershed 

moving water from rain and snow 

to creek and river 

and so on to the ocean 

the valley thrives greenest in the wet years 

and yellows a bit in the dry ones 

have you ever felt dry and brittle 

like perhaps you wouldn’t make it 

to the next wet year 

i often have 

especially when missing my late son 

mid-winter looking west 

i see a front coming in 

it will rain in this valley today 

__________


stuff turns out better 

when you make the best

of the way stuff turns out.

james lee jobe 


Paul Cézanne - 1883
View of the Bay of Marseille & the Village of Saint-Henri


Just as the Ganga slants, slopes, and inclines toward the east, so too a practitioner who develops and cultivates the four meditations slants, slopes, and inclines toward nirvana.

Gautama Buddha 


Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.

John Lewis  


link: Anne Frank Huis, a poem by Andrew Motion


please consider making a donation to support this blog with a cup of coffee. the link, just below, is safe. thank you, jlj 


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